Healthy Home: Make Your Own Dishwasher Detergent!

Posted on Jan 14, 2016 3:00pm PST

Looking for ways to make your Chattanooga house healthier in the new year?
Make 2016 a year to use fewer toxins in your household goods. The benefits
are surprising.

For one thing, you’ll be using products that aren’t toxic if
you accidentally touch them, and that’s always nice, right? Plus
it’ll save you money and help the environment. But let’s look
at it more closely.

Health Benefits

If your Chattanooga, TN chiropractor has ever talked to you about reducing
VOCs in your life, you’re in the right place. Commercial detergents
for dishwashers may make your dishes sparkly, might suds up really well,
and might smell good, but the chemicals required to do these things end
up being toxic for your home’s air and the water system.

VOCs, or
volatile organic compounds, are organic chemicals that can cause damage to living creatures over
a long period of time. So even though harmful VOCs (contained in many
scents and odors) are not very toxic at any given point in time, their
buildup eventually may cause harm. However, because of this long-term
nature, research in this area is tricky, so you won’t see warning
labels on products that contain VOCs.

As a consumer, you’re on your own to determine what’s best
for your family. So do a
little research and find out how helpful it is to eliminate as many VOCs as you can by
limiting what products contain them—dishwasher detergent being one of them.

Wallet Benefits

But keeping your Chattanooga-based family healthy isn’t the only
thing making your own dishwasher detergent does. By mixing together bulk
ingredients, you make up batches of detergent when you need them without
costing you every time.

For example, the ingredients in dishwasher detergent include borax, washing
powder, and salt. These are all common, natural goods that you can find
in any Chattanooga grocery store. One box of each of these things may
last up to a year or more—meaning even if they collectively cost
the same or a little more than a bottle of dishwasher detergent, you won’t
be buying any more for a long time, so you save the cost of that bottle
several times over throughout the year!

This
Chattanooga news article even points out that making your own cleaners is a way to save money,
not to mention save anyone in your family from allergies. The woman in
the article we just mentioned started making her own cleaning products
in college to save money, but found out how helpful it was for other things,
like preventing eczema from being aggravated by laundry detergent. The
blog we mention in the next section breaks down the average cost for you.

The Recipe

At this point you are probably wondering how to make this dishwasher detergent
that your Chattanooga, TN chiropractor would approve of.

The ingredients are simple:

1 cup Borax

1 cup Washing powder (not baking soda!)

½ cup Kosher salt

½ cup Citric acid or LemiShine

1 teaspoon Rice to prevent caking

Once you’ve got the ingredients together, find a reusable air-tight
container for storage. Follow the tips in
this blog to get the best results, and to read about what each ingredient does.
None of these products release VOCs, so you’re safe using it all the time.

Have you ever made your own detergent before?

Have you ever considered making your own dishwasher or laundry detergent
before? Not only is it healthy and cost effective, it’s empowering
to be in control of what your household uses. You know exactly what is
contained each time someone runs a load of dishes, and that’s a
very good feeling.

Have you ever made your own detergent before? Tell us about it. Was it
easy? Difficult? Fun? Leave us a comment below!